


Cooking Disasters

by TheLizardWriter



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Baking, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 20:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20297512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLizardWriter/pseuds/TheLizardWriter
Summary: Launchpad is good at baking, Drake is good at cooking, but when the tables are turned, Gosalyn is left to wonder how they've survived this long





	Cooking Disasters

Every single day Drake spent with Launchpad made him feel more and more like they were designed for each other - puzzle pieces made specifically so that in every aspect of their lives, they fit together. For example, Drake was a heavy sleeper, but Launchpad tossed and turned all night long. Drake liked to read before bed, and Launchpad liked to hear a bedtime story. Drake loved to draw doodles on every available surface, and Launchpad liked to color them in for him, albeit a little sloppily. But most noticeable to Drake, he had been on his own for so long that he was an amazing cook. He could whip up dinner on a whim, not worrying the slightest about how it’d end up tasting, even when he went way off from his recipe. 

Launchpad, on the other hand, well, he had a tendency to burn more food than not, resulting in quite a few cuddle parties on the back porch while they aired out the smoking house. Launchpad, though, well, he was a genius with baking. Drake assumed it was from living in a house with kids for so long, but Launchpad could bake cookies or a cake that Drake would gorge himself on, even past the point where his stomach was begging him to stop. Drake, despite being what he considered a master chef, was utterly hopeless when it came to baking. He’d meticulously follow the recipe, measuring the oven manually with a thermometer, scooping each ingredient perfectly, exactly as the recipe called, and he’d still end up with an amorphous blob of goo that in no way resembled cookies. 

He hadn’t ever gotten into baking, he argued with Launchpad, because he had only been cooking for himself. He argued that he couldn’t have mastered cookie making, because one duck was not enough to eat an entire dozen cookies. Launchpad argued that one duck surely was enough to eat an entire dozen cookies. He even offered to prove it, but luckily Drake talked him out of that stunt.

Launchpad argued that he might have been better at cooking had Beakley actually allowed him to use the burners on the stove. “One time, I set the stove on fire,” he had lamented, “And ever since then it’s been, ‘Ohhhh, Launchpad, let me help you with that!’ It wasn’t my fault that there was a towel on the stove!” Drake had just patted his boyfriend on the back and nodded along, making a mental note to keep the rags far away from the stove.

Nonetheless, the two of them had started working in some sort of tandem. Drake would make the meals, and Launchpad would surprise him multiple times a week with fancy pastries, cookies, cakes, and other surprises. 

Once Gosalyn came into their lives, she wanted to be involved in every aspect of the home life, and they wanted to welcome her with open arms into every aspect. So, as Drake cooked dinners, she would stand next to him on her little stool, throwing in everything he told her to and a few things he didn’t. When Launchpad was baking, she’d run up next to him, offering to be the sampler for everything he made, often resulting in her having a tummy stuffed full of cookie dough long before the cookies were even out of the oven.

It wasn’t until a few months after Gos had finally been able to move in permanently with them that she had to suffer through one of Launchpad’s dinners and one of Drake’s desserts. Drake had been home alone that day, while Gosalyn was away at school and Launchpad was driving Mr. McDuck’s nephews around on some sort of adventure. So, he decided that he’d try his hand yet again at baking. He’d been practicing, watching videos online on how to bake, throwing little things together when no one was home, and reading countless blogs online about “the perfect cookies.” So, he figured he was finally ready. He was going to finally be the real master chef.

So, while his family was gone, he whipped up a quick batch of simple sugar cookies, cutting them into fun little shapes with Launchpad’s Darkwing Duck cookie cutter set, and even going so far as to food dye them purple. He hummed along to himself, shamelessly singing and finishing up his cookies in his frilly pink apron that Launchpad had gotten him after he spilled tomato sauce all over his favorite shirt one day.

By the time his cookies were done though, it was time for him to head a S.H.U.S.H. meeting that they had scheduled with him, so he laid them all out on a cooling rack by the fridge and scrambled into costume, climbing out his back window so as to not let the neighbors see him leaving the Mallard-McQuack household. 

What he didn’t do, was prep dinner for that night though, so when Launchpad came back with Gosalyn after picking her up from school, they were met with a silent house, not brimming with homeliness, not a frilly pink apron in sight.

“Dad, what’s for dinner?” Gosalyn asked, tugging on Launchpad’s arm, “I’m huuungry.” She looked up at her dad, who immediately broke out into a huge grin and she exclaimed, “Don’t you dare! I know you’re dad, and my name isn’t hungry!”

Launchpad’s smile only managed to get larger as she saw right through him. He walked into the kitchen, swinging the fridge open and saying, “Well, looks like  _ someone  _ ran out of the house before thinking of how hungry his poor starving family is,” Launchpad said with a laugh, “So, what’s it gonna be? Pizza? Chinese? Oooo, or we could drive out to Hamburger Hippo!” 

“My shoes are off, and they’re not going back on,” Gosalyn replied, hurriedly unlacing her shoes, “Anyways, I don’t want take-out! We did pizza last time dad was gone! Can’t you just cook some pasta or something? I want noodles! Noodles or death!”

“Right, uhhh,  _ cook _ . Cook pasta. Pasta cooking is, uhh, yes, something I can do,” Launchpad walked into the kitchen, moving just a tad bit too mechanically, “So, uhh, that goes in a pot, right?”

“Very funny, dad,” Gosalyn said, flopping down on the couch with the remote, “Ugh, dad recorded that dumb gardening show over my cartoons again!” Gosalyn sighed, flipping through channels as Launchpad tunnel visioned the stove.

He ran his hands over the stovetop before turning it on, making sure there were no errant towels or rags or anything flammable hiding in plain sight. He managed to fill a pot with water without the whole house coming tumbling down, and he even managed to turn on the right burner on the second try! Calm down, LP, he kept saying to himself, it’s just dinner, we’ll live through it.

So, after about an hour of Launchpad struggling through the basics of pasta making, Launchpad called out, “C’mon Gos, dinner’s ready!”

She came barreling down the hall, landing in her seat at the table with a flying jump, banging her fists on the table, “Oh man, I’m starved!” She said, but her expression quickly soured as Launchpad placed a dark red mess of… something in front of her.

“One pasta!” He said, grinning widely.

His grin faltered as his daughter just sat there, staring at the burnt and misshaped mess in front of her. “Maybe we shoulda gone with pizza,” she said, poking at it gently with her fork, but it didn’t budge a bit.

As they both stared at the atrocity in front of Gosalyn, Launchpad’s phone lit up on the table, along with the first few notes of the Darkwing Duck theme song, signalling a text from Drake.

“Keen gear!” Gosalyn said, snatching up the phone, “Dad said he made cookies! We can eat those for dinner! They’re by the fridge, let’s get snacking!”

Launchpad walked over to the fridge, a frown plastered across his beak as he said, “I don’t think these are cookies.”

Gosalyn ran over to him, pulling herself up so she could see the top of the counter. “Eww, are those alive?” She asked, poking at one jiggly cookie. “I thought you guys were good at this whole, being adults thing? Have you been lying to me this whole time? Is our whole life a lie?” Gosalyn had a huge smile plastered across her face as Launchpad glanced around desperately.

“Well, I don’t think Hamburger Hippo has a shoes policy,” Launchpad said, swooping up his daughter. “You don’t even have to put them back on!”


End file.
